Once Upon a Stable
by Taliatoennien
Summary: Regina and Daniel's story, pre-"Stable Boy." Fourth chapter takes place directly after "The Still Small Voice." Canon through "Stable Boy," entirely possible to be Jossed as future events unfold. Regina/Daniel romance, Regina/Emma/Henry friendship.
1. The Girl Under the Hay

SUMMARY: Regina and Daniel's story, pre-"Stable Boy." Fourth chapter takes place directly after "The Still Small Voice." Canon through "Stable Boy," entirely possible to be Jossed as future events unfold. Regina/Daniel romance, Regina/Emma/Henry friendship. The audience will kindly ignore the author's My Little Pony fixation, which has nothing (translation: everything) to do with the plot.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Once Upon a Time," Regina, Daniel, or any of the supplementary characters, and I'm not making any money from this story.

WARNING: You're reading my fic, do any of you even need the angst warning by now? This story contains nongraphic allusions to child abuse. You didn't expect Regina's mother to be June Cleaver right up until the Daniel situation, did you?

Speaking of mothers, huge beta thanks to my mother, who did an overnight canon check for me. At the time of this writing, I've only seen seven episodes of Once Upon a Time, so I asked Mom to ensure that I didn't contradict anything that I might not have seen.

A/N and DEDICATION: To Rowan, because you asked so nicely.

One more note (will she ever shut up, you ask … :D ) … you people are bewildering and wonderful. Really. I have never in my life received six reviews and a ton of assorted "favorites" and "author notifications" for a story in the first 24 hours after I posted it. Thank you – for the love and for bolstering my confidence with my writing, it means a lot to me specifically at this point in my life. I don't want to disappoint anyone, however. Most of the reviews seemed to be under the impression that this was the start of a novel (and hoping that I'd go the SwanQueen route). This story is complete, though; there won't be any more chapters. It's intended to be Regina/Emma friendship only (although if you would like to read in 'ship, you are welcome to do so). I wrote it for two reasons: a friend of mine requested angsty Regina fic, and in the space of less than two weeks I've fallen so hard for Regina it's ridiculous. Within the _Once Upon a Time _fairytale realm, each character has _one_ true love. I believe that by casting the curse, Regina tried to create a world where she could fall in love again. But she didn't take into account that it's almost as hard for us to find a second True Love, and almost as random. My Regina is still in love with Daniel, no matter how many years later it might be.

Once Upon a Stable

by Alicia

Chapter 1: The Girl Under the Hay

The cart swerved sharply left and tilted alarmingly skyward as it continued its journey. Too quickly. Darrin yelped and sprinted from the colt he'd been tending to the other side of the load of tarp-covered horse blankets. "Daniel, watch where you're –"

With a wet rhythmic thunking noise, one at a time, each blanket slid out from under the protective tarp to scatter along a quarter-mile's distance in the mud on the side of the road. The cart itself, light and empty, flipped on a rock. The cart horse halted. He stood next to the splinters and glared at Daniel.

Daniel ran to catch up to his offended horse and make amends. Darrin ran to catch up to his brother, Daniel was sure to deliver a scathing lecture and possibly lament the loss of the blankets. The rain ran in uncaring rivulets to catch up to everything: leaves, tree trunks, dirt, rocks, Daniel's back.

"How many times do I have to tell you to watch where you're going in the rain?"

"How many times do I have to tell you to let me do my job?" Daniel shot back over his shoulder.

"Fine job you did." At eighteen, Darrin's legs were longer than Daniel's. He would be there in just a few minutes.

"All I ruined was horse blankets," Daniel said, skidding to a stop next to the cart horse. He reached to take the unattached harness from the horse's back, missed, and caught only a slick rock, his hands scrabbling at the sides of the rock as his feet spread and he sat in the mud.

"And our best cart."

"Our only cart. You sold our best cart for a handful of colored sand."

"The merchants told me it was fairy dust."

"Dust to summon fairies. Fairies don't live here, bonehead. They're all the way on the other side of the forest, and they don't fly fast." Daniel's ironclad logical arguments would probably have been more believable if they hadn't been delivered by a mud-covered fourteen year old peasant boy who was at that moment struggling to become upright with too-long legs sticking out at odd angles.

Although the wind muffled his brother's voice, Daniel was sure he heard Darrin say, "How else am I going to find a girl?"

Daniel said quite loudly and clearly, "Unless you're looking for a girl unicorn to complete the herd, your love life isn't worth our cart." As he said, "cart," he succeeded in pulling himself to a standing position. That was better. He had never understood his brother's fixation with girls. Girls were cute when they danced in a town square on feast days, useful when they provided supplies and horse management tips, and generally ignorable besides that.

"And your clumsiness is worth our other cart?"

"I'm not clumsy," Daniel said. On "clumsy," the cart horse whumped him in the small of the back and he fell knees forward, soiling the entire length of his trousers, front and back.

"Nice one, boy," Darrin said. He smoothly ran the last few paces to the large rock, stepped over his brother as if the ground was steady and solid, and freed the cart horse from its useless harness.

The horse neighed.

Daniel couldn't think of a suitable epithet to use on either, so he kept silent. He envisioned the splinters of the useless cart knitting themselves back together, magically filling with horse manure, and slowly emptying over Darrin's head.

A handful of mud thumped against Daniel's back.

Daniel turned. Slipping and sliding, he covered the distance between himself and his older brother. Instead of attempting to gain proper footing to attack, he just grabbed his brother's shoulders. They tumbled into the gutter.

Twenty minutes later, Daniel addressed a large pile of mud with blue eyes. "Um, I think the rain is stopping. Since we don't have blankets to keep the horses warm, do you suppose we should find a stable for the herd? I think there's a town a few miles to the east."

The mud said, "Heh. Okay. But you still owe me a new cart."

"In that case, you owe me a new sweater."

"How do you figure that?"

"If you hadn't thrown the mud at me, all I'd have needed would have been new trousers."

"Fine." The mud extended an appendage. "On the day you bring home a brand new cart, I will buy you a sweater."

Daniel took his brother's hand – at least, he thought there was a hand somewhere underneath all the mud. They stood in unison. Their feet slid in unison. They ended up back where they'd started, on their rear ends.

Well, at least Daniel wasn't the only one to slip in the mud anymore.

When Darrin started to laugh, Daniel joined. The day could have been so much worse. He was with his brother, the herd had nearly all its members, and rain was only water. The ghost of a rainbow hovered on the horizon, over and above the still-offended gallingly mud-free cart horse.

There was indeed a village only a few miles down the road, and over the next several hours, Darrin and Daniel brought the herd to warmth and safety without incident. While the herd was too large to be stabled anywhere besides a king's palace, several merchants tied their work tents together to make a temporary canopy over the horses' heads. They refused payment, saying that the horses would be more than enough help on market day to justify the effort.

After the fifth compliment about the unusually regal bearing of the five herd leaders, Daniel whispered in Darrin's ear, "they're not really horses."

Darrin repaid him with a hissed "I know that," and an elbow to the ribs.

The elbow was a reminder of the need for secrecy, of course, but it was unnecessary. It had been Daniel's mission for as long as he could remember. Find the enchanted creatures of the enchanted forest: the unicorns, the pegasai, the fairy ghost steeds. Shelter them, protect, them, bring them together. And then, when the herd was complete, ride with them all his days as a privileged Unicorn Rider. Probably alone, he mused, since Darrin seemed to determined to settle down with a girl before their mission was complete.

Just to annoy Darrin, Daniel whispered again. "What would you do if I tell that pretty girl over there she can fly away on the red mare over there if she'll only marry you?"

"I'd poison your water flagon," Darrin responded without missing a beat. "Besides, I can tell her myself. There's no limit to the number of Unicorn Riders, you know. If I am to trade for a wife, though, I think I would rather ask the blond one over there.

"I'm going to go trip her," Daniel said.

Daniel did stalk off, but in the opposite direction from his brother's intended conquest, and Darrin, infuriatingly, did not seem even to expect Daniel to interfere with his evening plans. Daniel often wondered if there was such a thing as an enchanted Stupid Potion, and if so if he could ever procure some to slip into his brother's wine. Not a permanent Stupid Potion, of course, just one to let Daniel be the smart one for awhile and for a change.

Daniel had bigger problems, however. Problem number one, always on his mind, was how he was to lure a particular young female unicorn to the herd. She was somewhere in these woods – probably everywhere in these woods at different times, given the particular fleet footed gift of the unicorns. She was lost, scared, alone, and far too far away to tell the difference between the herd and ordinary horses, or between Darrin and Daniel and ordinary people who might hurt or sell her. As intelligent as magical horses were ordinarily, they were particularly bad at finding one another. That was why Unicorn Riders existed at all. Or would exist, once Darrin and Daniel completed their mission. They had been tracking this unicorn for several months, and were no closer than when they had begun.

Problem number two was that Daniel needed to buy a cart to make Darrin look foolish. Well, actually Daniel needed a cart so that Darrin would replace Daniel's ruined sweater, but priorities were priorities. Problem number three was that they had camped within a stone's throw of a house of nobles and had been too wet and exhausted to notice.

Normally solving a problem like a location too near to nobles would involve travelling in the direction away from the house where the nobles lived, but Daniel decided he had been the one to take the Stupid Potion that night. There were no lights in either the house or the stable, and the storm had cleared and the night was quiet. But there was something wrong. There were tiny stray bits of motion. Daniel's eyes, trained to pick out the movements of magical horses camouflaged deep in the woods, caught the movement behind the stable window in the dark, the faint vibrations of grass that were not caused by the wind. If a noble was out in his stable late at night, he would have candles and servants. Either someone was getting robbed, or…

Moving as silently, and almost as swiftly, as one of his unicorns, Daniel crossed into the noble family's yard, up the hill, and into the stable. If he could catch a thief in the act, perhaps they would reward him with money he could use for a cart.

The stable was silent and still. Nothing breathed, nothing moved … except one pile of hay in the far corner. Daniel tackled the hay. "You'll steal no bread tonight," he whispered.

There was a little girl hidden under the hay.

"What?" Daniel said, newly confused. "Where are your parents?"

"What are you doing in my stable?"

Daniel noted that her voice was commanding, but in the moonlight there were trails of tears plainly visible on her cheeks. "I thought there was someone here stealing from you," he said.

The anger slipped from her face. "There is no thief. My parents own this house, and I …"

"You were hiding," Daniel finished for her. You were hiding as a unicorn hides, he did not add. "Umm, I'm just going to go," and he backed up a few paces toward the door.

Anger had already faded from the girl's features, but as Daniel backed away, it was replaced by something like terror.

"Do you, uh, want me to stay with you? For awhile? Are you hiding from something really bad?"

She didn't answer, but made a tiny gesture that looked like a nod.

To Daniel's eyes, that was a shout. He sat down and patted the hay at his side.

She sat, not touching him. Stray tears ran down her cheeks in the dark. He finally reached over to clasp her hand. She let him.

"Better now," she said, standing. "Next time I won't cry at all."

Daniel did not have any idea what to make of this.

"Can you take away the cart I made? Mother will be angry if she sees it in the morning."

"You made this?" Daniel was still seated on the hay, two steps behind the girl he had discovered.

"Father helped me. But Mother does not like it."

"Ummm, okay," Daniel said. "But I should go."

"Thank you," the girl said. As silently as a unicorn, she vanished back into the night, away from the stable and toward the house. There was only a faint vibration of grass where she passed.

Just as silently, but far more slowly and painstakingly, Daniel pulled the cart by himself out of the barn, down the hill, across the path and woods where he had come from, and to the edge of the inn where Darrin had taken a room earlier. It wasn't perfect. The left wheel was larger than the right, and the front of the cart sloped slightly which would require extra bracing for heavy loads. But it was at least as well made as the cart Daniel had broken.

When he reached the inn, Daniel spared a second to hope that he found the right room for Darrin. He spared several more seconds to hope that he would not find Darrin asleep with the blonde girl from the village. Then he abandoned his silence, flung open the door, and announced to a thankfully-alone Darrin, "I have our cart."

"What the…" and Darrin said several words Daniel wasn't supposed to know. "Now? Cart? Sleep."

"Get yourself out of bed and outside," Daniel said.

When Darrin didn't move, Daniel grabbed a waterskin from Darrin's abandoned pack and emptied it over Darrin's head. It wasn't quite as satisfying as imaginary manure, but it was the next best thing.

When Darrin stopped coughing and sputtering and smacking Daniel – which was completely worth it – the brothers stumbled ungracefully back out the front door of the inn, probably waking all the guests up along the way.

"See?" Daniel said. "Cart." Yep. He'd taken the Stupid Potion. He was unable to come up with sentences longer than one word.

"Sweater. Tomorrow." Darrin said. "Bed."

After all that, Daniel had to sleep on the floor. But he didn't envy Darrin the bed anyway, considering that the bed was still soaked.

"Hey, kid," Darrin mumbled.

"Yeah?"

"You didn't steal that."

Daniel had never stolen anything in his life. "Of course not. A little girl gave it to me."

"Huh?"

"You know that noble family just over the hill? There was a little girl out in the stable. She was upset about something, wouldn't tell me what. But she told me she built the cart and her mother didn't like it."

"Kid built it?"

"That's what I said." Daniel was already in the strange state where he was not sure what was real and what was dream. He wished Darrin would stop talking.

Suddenly Darrin sat up. "A little girl, you said? Is she a virgin?"

Daniel did not want to think about the circumstances under which a kid that age wouldn't be a virgin. "I assume so," he said.

"You're an idiot. Young unicorns come only to virgin girls."

Maybe he was asleep already, since Darrin wasn't making any sense.

"You're a double idiot," Darrin said, and he reached over the edge to halfheartedly smack Daniel on the shoulder for good measure. "If we can persuade the kid to help us, we can find the unicorn. So go find her tomorrow and make her come with us."

"Uh huh," said Daniel. If Darrin said anything else, Daniel didn't hear. But Daniel thought he managed to say aloud, "First you buy that sweater for me," before he remembered nothing else.


	2. Sweaters and Secrets

SUMMARY: Regina and Daniel's story, pre-"Stable Boy."

DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Once Upon a Time," Regina, Daniel, or any of the supplementary characters, and I'm not making any money from this story.

WARNING: Angst, nongraphic allusions to child abuse.

Once Upon a Stable

by Alicia

Chapter 2: Sweaters and Secrets

"Look," said the man whose hands could spin silk into gold by completely nonmagical means – or so it seemed to the little girl who watched the man's every move with eager anticipation. "It's a …"

"A cow, Daddy," said Regina. She traced her finger around one perfect tiny carved spot on the cow's back.

"That's right, sweetheart. And this one is a …"

"A dog, Daddy."

"How about this one?"

Regina looked carefully. It was formed the same way as the dog, but with a different kind of bearing, a majesty she'd seen out in the woods. "A wolf."

"That's right." He beamed as if Regina had carved the animals herself.

"Show me how to make a dog!"

He scrunched up his eyebrows. "Are you sure? Those sausage fingers of yours…"

Regina poked him with the offending fingers, then returned her attention to the animal collection. "I want to make a puppy. A puppy to go with this dog family. It should have long ears and pretty fur."

"All right. I'll show you how to carve. But first I have to show you how to build."

"Why, Daddy?" It was Regina's favorite thing to say. She never said that word to her mother. Mother would scold, but Father would answer.

"Because you'll hit your hand with the hammer."

"I will not, Daddy."

Regina's father traced each of Regina's stubby fingers with his own strong fingers. "Yes, you will."

"Why will that teach me to carve a dog?"

"Because once you know how it feels to hit your hand with the hammer, you won't cry as much when you cut your hand with the knife."

"Then why don't I do it on purpose? If I hit my hand with the hammer right now, then can I carve a puppy?"

Regina felt her father's strong hands on hers, holding her back from all the tools. "You'll hit yourself enough accidentally. Now come. I'll show you how to pick boards."

It took Regina two weeks to successfully build the bed for a horse drawn cart. A simple cart, like those the peasants used. It was only a box, yet it took meticulous labor and concentration. Regina hit her hand four times. Each time she cried less. At night she slipped her father's animals inside and played with them by the fireplace, speaking softly so as not to alert her mother. Regina's mother hadn't laid down any rules against playing with carved animals, but Regina was not so foolish as to think her mother would approve.

The cart wheels were surprisingly easier, and Regina had the chance to do some carving as she fashioned the bar between the wheels and the wooden pieces that attached them to the cart bed. Her father watched as she worked, sometimes guiding her hands but never carrying out a step alone. Regina cut herself twice during the carving process. She did not cry at all.

It was a rainy afternoon when Regina completed her project. She put down the knife and hammer and looked at her father, proudly proclaiming, "the villagers could take this cart into the fields tomorrow."

His eyes said more than was ever necessary for his words. "They could, sweetheart. You did it."

Regina opened her mouth to ask if she could carve a puppy, but, with predictably bad timing, Regina's mother swept into the stable. "Oh, there you are," she said, as if her magic didn't tell her Regina's location at all times. "You need to come in to dress for tea early, dear. We need to go through all this rain just to get to the house. You should know better than to go out in the rain."

Mothers were to be hated. Mothers were to be pleased. Mothers were to be obeyed. Regina knew better than to dispute her mother on such a small matter as whether to stay in the stable an extra hour. She said, "yes, mother," and draped her coat over her shoulders, mentally preparing herself for the cold rain.

Because she'd had her back turned to get her coat, Regina did not see her mother's gaze sweep over the stable, nor her mother begin to walk over to the wheel Regina had hammered into place only a few minutes before. Regina's mother ran a hand over the top of one wheel. "These peasants have no sense of style," she said. Then she vanished out into the rain, leaving Regina to follow.

Perhaps it was because she was upset by her mother's criticism of her work, or perhaps – as inevitably happened in the power struggles between the two – Regina was simply tired of hiding her game – she played with her animals with more sound and less abandon that night. Mr. and Mrs. Dog had a grand adventure searching for their lost puppy – below the chairs, behind the bricks by the fireplace implements, within each hidden chink in the wall.

"It's not good for you to ignore the real world, dear." Regina's mother's voice was deceptively quiet. The woman was furious.

Regina ignored her mother and kept up with her game. Anger fueled her, anger and a desperate desire for the comfort of the game. Maybe this time when her mother punished her she would not cry.

"It's not good for you to ignore me either, dear. I see that I have to take these away from you."

As one, Regina's precious carved animals rose, away from Regina to collect in a small floating circle above the fireplace. Then, one at a time, each dropped into the fire. Regina nearly cried as the flames engulfed Mr. Dog, but she stayed strong.

"Will that be all, mother?"

"Yes, dear. I think it's time for bed."

"I can find my way myself," Regina said, and she rose and walked to her room with all the dignity she could put into her small frame. She pulled the blankets over her head, then lay and shook until she sensed that the other candles in the house were extinguished. Then, silently, she made her way out to the stables.

Where, at last, she cried.

Regina punished herself even as the tears fell in the dark. She had mastered the hammer. She had mastered the knife. She should not cry when her mother had not touched her. And yet the wooden animals seemed alive. They'd had their own magic. They were murdered now, destroyed by a hand who killed what Regina loved.

The stable door's hinges creaked in one particular place. Regina had purposefully instructed her father's hired hands not to fix it when her father wasn't looking. She wanted to be warned when people approached her sanctuary. A boy appeared in the doorway.

Regina stayed as still as possible. For a moment she thought it would work and the boy would leave – that trick usually fooled her mother at least into employing magic. But the boy stood a few minutes longer, then ran right at her. Regina jumped from her hiding place.

"Where are your parents?" the boy said.

"What are you doing in my stable?" Regina said, putting all the regal bearing her mother had attempted to drill into her into those few words.

"I thought there was someone here stealing from you." His voice was gentle. Somehow he made Regina feel safe. He honestly would be able to recognize a threat.

"There is no thief," Regina said. She hesitated. She wanted to tell him everything, and yet he was a stranger. "My parents own this house, and I …" Could she say that she was checking on the horses at her father's request?

"You were hiding," he said, uncannily reading her mind. He suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Umm, I'm just going to go," he said, backing up.

He was going to leave, and Regina would be left alone again with the memories of all those little imaginary creatures dying in the flames.

Then the impossible happened. No one had ever watched Regina's face in quite that way before. "Do you, uh, want me to stay with you? For awhile? Are you hiding from something really bad?"

Regina had the sudden illogical wish to throw herself into his arms and ask him to stay forever. Wishes were for weaklings and fools, her mother liked to say.

The boy sat down on the hay. He patted the hay next to him.

Regina sat down. She wanted to turn and sob into his shoulder. She was horrified at herself for the weakness. Hadn't the hammer and knife taught her better? But if she must weep, she could do it quietly, with dignity.

And with a protector nearby. Who held Regina's hand.

It felt like a very long time, but the storm passed. Regina let go and stood up. "Better now," she said. She added as a promise to herself, "Next time I won't cry at all." She looked at all the familiar objects in the stable to remind herself, and her eyes fell on the cart that she had been so proud of the day before. "Can you take away the cart I made? Mother will be angry if she sees it in the morning."

"You made this?" the boy said, drifting over toward it.

Regina was happy that he liked it. Maybe it wasn't as bad as she had thought. But her mother would criticize her for that weakness as well; of course it was as bad as she had thought. "Father helped me. But Mother does not like it." Regina's enunciation had returned. She was in control again.

"Okay. But I should go."

"Thank you." Regina didn't wait to see if he took the cart; she knew that he could. She slipped back across the fields into the house, then into her room without being noticed at all. Not being noticed was good. It was less likely to earn a magical beating from her mother.

One day Regina would not cry when she was punished.

The next morning came as sunny and bright as the previous day had been dark. Rather than rushing away at first chance to be out in the stables with her father, Regina attended to her mother's routine. The morning lesson was embroidery. Regina was pleased to note that every time her fingers slipped and the needle drew blood, she felt nothing. Her embroidery was soon spotted and ridiculous, and her mother forced her outside out of sheer frustration.

Regina headed over the stables, intending to persuade her father to teach her to carve a puppy. Maybe this time, if she was just smart enough not to take the animals in the house, it would all be okay.

"Hey, kid," said an unfamiliar voice from the woods.

Regina hurried over. Two faces appeared from behind one of the thicker bushes, seemingly out of nowhere. One was unfamiliar, but one was the face of the boy who had comforted her the night before. "What do you want?" She tried to be angry, but her heart leapt to see the boy again. She could see in the light what she had not seen in the dark: his face was handsome and somehow familiar, and his eyes were deep and full of wisdom.

"Can you help us?" said the unfamiliar voice.

Regina focused instead on the boy she knew from the night before. "I have to go back before Mother sees me over here," she told him. She hoped someday to be just a little bit braver, but she did not want to face her mother's punishment today.

He elbowed the older boy and said, "Let me talk to her." Then addressing Regina, he said, "Will you get in trouble if you slip out tonight, after dark? If you come out in the forest with us, we can show you the unicorns."

Regina had not thought to ask her father to carve a unicorn for her. She hadn't known they still existed. "Yes," she said. Then, hurriedly, she looked up and sidelong to the forest, along the road, and called, "You fools, take the carts the other way in the wet ground left after the rain!" Hoping that her parents would not notice the empty road and severe lack of any kind of traffic, foolish or otherwise, Regina scampered into the stable.

She asked her father to teach her to carve a unicorn. His turned out perfectly the first time. Each of Regina's three attempts was flawed in some way, and she kept breaking the horns.

It took Regina's parents longer than usual to fall asleep that night. It always did – time had a funny way of slowing just as something exciting was about to happen. But finally their candles were dark and their breathing – which Regina could hear even from her room – was even. She would have to be sure to be back in her bed well before light. Regina's mother had a lot of different ways to punish her. Using magic, she could break Regina's toys, maneuver Regina into a humiliating position in the nearest corner, or undo Regina's previous chores to be done all over again. But Regina's mother could punish her directly. She could point one finger, and it was always the same one, and Regina's entire body would explode into pain. Regina had not yet endured such a session without crying. But one day she would. And the chance to possibly see unicorns … well, and to see the boy again … was worth the risk.

Regina crept out silently, out the door and over the field, to roughly the same patch of forest as before. The boys were there, waiting for her. She wondered if they had ever left.

"I'll scout ahead," the unfamiliar boy said.

The boy from the night before looked directly at Regina. He could hold her still with his eyes alone. "There's nothing to be afraid of," he said. "We need you to call the unicorn. Just call to her. She'll come to you."

"Why can't you call her?"

"Because I'm a boy, silly, and you're a girl." He paused, then asked gently, "What's your name?"

Regina wasn't sure if she believed her mother, but she said anyway, "Mother says if you tell someone your name you give that person power over you."

"Well, then," he said, punching her lightly on the shoulder, "We wouldn't want that now. Can you tell the unicorn your name?"

"How?"

"You just have to think about her. Come on."

He vanished ahead into the forest. Or, so Regina thought for a moment, but then a single hand appeared above a large low-hanging branch. It pointed and beckoned.

The journey was something out of a dream. Surreal, quiet, and lovely. Regina forgot about magic and pain.

He halted in a tiny clearing. A forest stream trickled from a rock a few paces to the right. A canopy of leaves covered the entire area. Drops of leftover rainwater mixed with dew sparkled on every closeby leaf. "This should do," he said softly.

To Regina, it looked very much like a place a unicorn might like. "What do we do now?"

"We wait. Just think about the unicorn." He sat against a tree trunk, and patted the nearby ground.

Regina sat, leaning against the tree trunk next to his. It wasn't hard to imagine unicorns as the soft sound of water and the tiny ethereal sparkles captured her senses. She tried to sit as she had before, upright, dignified. But she was tired, and the night air made her shiver. "Why doesn't she come?

"She's lost," he said. "She got lost a long time ago and she can't find her way back. She'll hear us. She'll come."

Regina yawned. Then she shivered violently. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"Here," he said, taking off a brown and gold patterned sweater and draping it around Regina's shoulders instead.

It helped. "Thank you," Regina murmured. "Is it loud enough? Thinking of unicorns?"

"Why don't you dream of unicorns instead?" he invited.

Dignity warred with adventure, but Regina eventually gave up and leaned against him, closing her eyes and letting his arms shelter her from the cold of the night.

"_You called me."_

_Regina could see herself asleep, nestled in the boy's arms, who also slept, chin resting on her hair. She must dream, then. She faced a creature of such beauty that all the years dreaming were worthwhile at once. "We both did."_

"_Yes. You belong together."_

"_Will we be together?" Regina asked. She didn't quite know what she meant. Mother and Father weren't together; Mother gave orders and Father mostly followed them when he wasn't sneaking Regina treats behind his back. Peasant brothers and sisters played together but then grew up and apart, Regina had heard this described by enough visitors. So what did this stranger mean that she and the boy belonged together?_

"_You are together," the unicorn said. She shook her mane, engulfing the world in pearl for a moment. "We have this moment, all of us."_

"_This moment?"_

"_This moment is forever. This is the gift I give you, this one moment."_

_And Regina was snuggled into his arms, loved and safe and whole._

"_Thank you for bringing me home."_

"_This is your home? This place?"_

"_You will understand in time. But for now, forget."_

Regina woke, stiff but yet somehow more comfortable than she'd ever been, gazing at a creature who looked like an exceptionally graceful filly.

The boy's face broke into a grin. "We did it," he said. "She's here."

Regina took a moment to marvel at the otherworldly wonder that she was in the presence of one of the legendary unicorns, and the more earthly wonder that she could still feel the ghost of warm, protective arms around her shoulders.

Then, the memory of the things her mother could and would do to her hit in full force, and she ran backwards, back to her home, back … ignoring the "wait!" in the distance.

Regina's mother's punishment was as bad as Regina had expected, and she was reduced to a sobbing, undignified mess before it was finally over. Regina's mother draped rough hands on Regina's shoulders. Regina stiffened, then scooted forward on her belly to get away from the hands. She wanted to remember the other hands, the hands that had held her warm and safe.

That night Regina slept in the boy's sweater.


	3. Happily Ever After

SUMMARY: Regina and Daniel's story, pre-"Stable Boy."

DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Once Upon a Time," Regina, Daniel, or any of the supplementary characters, and I'm not making any money from this story.

WARNING: Angst, nongraphic allusions to child abuse.

Once Upon a Stable

by Alicia

Chapter 3: Happily Ever After

"Light it," Regina's mother said.

Deliberately ignoring what she knew her mother wanted, Regina knelt to the wood, picked up the flint and steel set for the servants to use, and knocked the two together. She had a skill born from long practice. Satisfied with her work, she rose as flames rose.

Her mother's lips pursed dangerously.

Regina stared at her, communicating with her eyes that she'd done nothing wrong. At last she'd learned the way to endure her mother's punishments. She simply had to act as if her mother had no power, as if they were equals.

Her mother used magic to carry a bucket of water from the kitchen – where it presumably would have been used for dishes at some point during the day – and empty it over Regina's fire.

Regina schooled her features so that she looked bored. "If that is all, Mother…"

"I don't understand why you won't learn to use magic. Why you hate it so. Why you hate me so."

_I won't learn to use magic because you use it to make my skin turn to invisible fire,_ Regina thought but did not say. She kept her gaze locked with her mother's, expressionless. Kept her power.

"Perhaps you need better kindling. Like that sweater you love so." Regina's mother used magic to lift the sweater that Regina had carelessly left lying on one of the living room chairs. She rotated it in midair a few times, then set it on top of the wet logs. She pointed, and the sweater gave a loud pop and burst into flames.

She was emotionless. She kept her power.

Her mother had not just destroyed the last element of the boy of her dreams. Because that would be unthinkable.

That night she did not cry. When her parents' breathing had been even for hours and still she couldn't sleep, she rose and slipped silently to the stables. Just once more. To clear her head.

The far bale of hay rustled, and a figure rose. Startling deep eyes met Regina's in the dark.

Regina did not hesitate, nor did she think about power. She threw herself into his arms.

"I found you at last," he said over and over.

"But I've been right here. Where did you go?"

He pulled back a little – hard to do when Regina was clutching him so desperately – and said, "I'll tell you soon enough. For now, just tell me your name."

"Tell me yours! So I don't lose you again."

He drew back, this time succeeding, gripping Regina's shoulders and meeting her eyes. "Daniel," he said. "My name is Daniel. And this means you have power over me, summoner of unicorns."

Regina managed to come close again, burying her face in his shirt. "Regina," she said. "I … have something else to tell you."

"What is it?"

"I lost your sweater."

He laughed, and she cried, and they held each other long past the reasonably safe point when Regina needed to break away and go back to bed lest her parents notice. But Regina's mother slept late that morning and Regina escaped unpunished.

Mid-morning, as Regina was doing her reluctantly-permitted riding lesson with her father, Daniel strode up the road to the front door and humbly asked for a job as a stable hand. Regina did not speak or acknowledge his presence in any way, and Daniel did not so much as look at her. He moved in that night, the first person ever to occupy the servants' quarters next to the stable, built to accommodate four in hopes of having many more horses.

The days stretched into weeks and then months, and Regina wondered how she had survived before her guardian angel had moved into the stables. He was warm and friendly and unassuming by day, lending a kind of color to Regina's outdoor work just by being there to watch. He was deep and full of fire and life by night, talking and laughing until the moon was high after Regina snuck out of her room to join him in the servants' quarters. She always left before midnight, unwilling to risk either of their safety when they always had the next day, and the next evening.

There were things about Daniel that surprised Regina. He didn't understand what it was to have parents. He had grown up an orphan with just his older brother, and Darrin had moved to … Daniel didn't say what, only that each had to find his own destiny now.

Regina found herself again weakening toward life with her mother. Her mother's harsh criticisms again went through, leaving Regina trembling and doubting her beauty and skill and worth. Her mother's physical punishments again left visceral trails across her forearms and back, and it became a struggle not to cry out where it had not been for years. But paradoxically, Regina found it all more endurable than it had been when she had her thick armor. Daniel was there to tell her that she was beautiful. Daniel was there to tell her that anyone who thought she couldn't create a good life with all her boyish traits was a fool. Daniel was there to hold her when the remembered pain grew to be too much. And he never tired of doing so. Even when he could only pick up the pieces, he was Regina's protector.

The hammer and the knife and finally the magic fire had taught her not to cry, but Daniel taught her that it was safe to cry.

Their first kiss was sweet and natural. Daniel had been telling some story involving mud wrestling, and Regina had been attempting to listen although her mother's voice in her head had been exceptionally loud. Daniel paused mid-sentence, tilted his head, and kissed her. Their noses bumped, and their lips weren't anywhere near each other's, and they laughed. And tried again.

"How _did_ you get here," Regina asked, one night when the moon had almost completely risen and their conversation had reached a comfortable lull.

"Well, I rode part of the way, but after that I walked."

"No, idiot," Regina elbowed Daniel in the ribs, which was an accomplishment considering they were nestled up together and Daniel's arm was around Regina's shoulders. "I meant, how did you get back here?"

"Oh. Well, this is a long story."

"We have time." That wasn't true and they both knew it; Regina would have to be in bed before the moon rose any more or she would be sleepy enough to give herself away in the morning.

"We're Unicorn Riders. My brother and I. Well," Daniel gave a soft laugh, "I don't know how it all started. I know what Darrin taught me. Which sometimes wasn't all that much. Our job was to find all the unicorns. When the herd was all together again, our happily ever after was that we'd be able to ride them. We'd live in their world. Pretty much forever, I think."

"You keep saying 'was.'" Regina felt her own breath draw inward as she realized, "Is that where Darrin is now?"

"We did it. And yeah, Darrin chose to go. He and his wife are … well, goodness knows where by now. And I … chose to stay."

"I love you."

Daniel stared at her.

"I love you. And someday we're going to be married."

"I love you," Daniel said. "I made the right choice." Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, and the moment went on and on. They already had their happy ending, because they had each other.


	4. Unicorn

SUMMARY: Post-Ep to "The Still Small Voice"

DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Once Upon a Time," Regina, Daniel, Emma, Henry or anyone else, and I'm not making any money from this story.

Once Upon a Stable

by Alicia

Chapter 4: Unicorn

Regina always dreamed of the enchanted forest. The other residents of Storybrooke (_her_ people) dreamed about mundane things common to the place that they called the "real" world: penguins and koalas, drinking coffee in tiny cafes, and, once Henry came, Transformers and exaggerated idealized baseball. Regina knew this because on rare occasions, a random person – the man who delivered the mail, or the lady behind the grocery counter – felt that she needed to hear the mundane drivel that passed for pictures inside his or her head. Mostly, Regina knew because she retained traces of magic. Specifically, she retained traces of magic that connected to the curse. The stray thoughts and pictures filtering from their minds were like a thermometer, a constant whisper at the back of Regina's mind reassuring her that her people remained safely enchanted.

On the rare nights when Graham slept in her bed, Regina did not sleep. She did not dare surrender to sleep. Even if she did not talk in her sleep and give herself away, she dared not give another human being complete power over her.

On those nights Regina contented herself to watch Graham breathe. She remembered the hunter who had been raised by wolves. She told herself that the loss of all adventure had been worth it, because those who were evil in her kingdom had almost fully been punished, and because she herself had a chance in this world to forget the glory and magic she once had. She looked for the faint images from the spell that told her that Graham dreamed of the ordinary.

On those nights, Regina told herself that she had brought everyone to a world where there were no such things as happily ever after. No happy endings meant that you could lose and fall and eventually get up again. No happy endings meant no sad endings.

_That _night, Henry fled Archie into a mine which collapsed, and Regina had to compromise with Emma to finally bring Henry back to safety. _That _night, Graham volunteered to come over. Regina told him curtly that she was fine. It had worked on Emma earlier. The Mayor's dismissal was a command. It worked on Emma. It worked on Graham.

Regina lay in her bed. Alone, but she felt the same adrenaline in her body that kept her awake when a threat to her command was near. There was no threat. Graham could become a threat, but he wasn't there. Regina was alone, the only other human being in the room her ten year old son. Henry had nearly died that night. Of course there was a threat. No sad endings, Regina told herself. No happily ever after. There was only routine in Storybrooke. Routine and safety. Henry would convince himself that his fantasies were just that. Emma would leave town. Mary Margaret would suffer. Regina would be happy.

Those were the resolutions she repeated to herself every night, but that night they had little meaning. Regina checked Henry's room six times. The fourth time she told herself that it was completely rational to ensure that Henry's lungs hadn't been affected by the mine dust. The sixth time she did not pretend that it was anything other than a mother's desire to reassure herself that her son lived. Regina Mills was a skilled liar. Especially when it concerned herself. And the first rule of lying is to know when it is time to stop.

Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning she slipped from twilight into actual sleep.

_She paced the outside of the mine tunnel. Panic burned in her heart as dust burned through her nostrils. "He's my son," she said._

"_That's nonsense," Emma said._

_Regina turned back toward the tunnel opening. Her mother waited just behind the rusted grate. Magic blazed through the witch's hands. In moments she would free herself._

_With reflexes she hadn't had since her top horseriding days, Regina redirected the explosives that the safety workers were to set off, sending them not over the tunnel but into the mine shaft itself. Blow up that woman before she had a chance to kill anything else Regina had allowed herself to love._

_The explosions began, loud and satisfying. Regina turned to see the powerlessness on her mother's face as she finally left this world._

_A male face looked sadly out of the mine. He had blue eyes._

"_No!" Regina cried._

"No!" Regina cried.

"Mom?" Henry said. He stood at the foot of Regina's bed, shuffling his feet and looking down.

Shame warred with panic and grief. And somewhere, there was a small voice that told her that her son had just called her "mom." "I'm fine," she said, swinging her feet over the side of the bed and standing up straight. She was still in her clothes from the night before. "Are you ready for school?"

Henry slouched and looked away. "I'm ready."

"Did you get your homework done last night?"

"No."

Of course he hadn't. She'd driven him home from the mining site, put him to bed, and then held his hand until he'd fallen asleep. "Right. I'm sure Miss Blanchard will understand."

"Let's go." Henry turned and left.

Regina sighed. Nearly losing her son the day before magnified the routine morning fight. But it was hard to chase away the images from the dream. Especially Daniel's face staring from the abandoned mine tunnel, murdered by Regina's own hand.

It had been so long since she had dreamed of Daniel.

Under the crisp red "mayor" logo, Regina's computer announced, "Happy Birthday."

Damn, she'd forgotten about that. The day, at least. Regina had become tired of endlessly altering paperwork, so she had chosen a day to call her birthday. It wasn't her actual birthday, but that didn't matter – everyone else thought it was.

Clearly someone had hacked her computer. Either Graham or … Regina's mind rebelled at the simple task of listing the people who had access to her office. This wouldn't do. She couldn't afford this kind of mental vulnerability.

Once again if she were to cease lying to herself, Regina also couldn't work when every mundane button looked like a remote detonator for a set of explosives. No, this wouldn't do at all. She could not afford to let any of them see her in this state.

Voices filtered in from the outer section of the office, through the closed door. Regina's hearing had always been exceptional, and it was enhanced by her magical knowledge of the state of her peoples' minds. She automatically focused outward for a few moments, habitually noting whether or not voices expressed anything of consequence and the people to whom the voices belonged.

It was nine in the morning on a school day, yet the first voice belonged to Henry. Softly, "Never mind. Take me back to school."

Regina's first impulse had nothing to do either with her discipline to maintain the role of mayor or her instincts as a powerful queen. It was the impulse of a mother to get her misbehaving child, tan his bottom, and take him back to school where he belonged.

Figuratively tan his bottom, of course. Regina did not spank Henry. Her hands had wielded knives and poison. They were soaked in too much blood to safely approach a child in anger.

The second voice was not so soft. "You should have said that an hour ago."

Emma. Regina knew that Emma knew that Regina hated her. Regina didn't know if Emma knew how much Regina feared her. Emma had the power to bring back the happy endings, to end all hope for Regina's happiness once and for all. To make Regina lose, as Snow White had said once.

Henry said, "Yes. You're right. Now take me back."

"Not yet."

Once again, Regina's first impulse had nothing to do with a threatened curse and a mortal enemy. It was a mother's impulse upon hearing a stranger say that she wouldn't take a child back to school, to lecture the stranger until she felt like she'd had _her_ bottom tanned, then take the child back to school herself.

"I thought we were going to find crickets. You know, for Operation Cobra."

Where Henry had come up with that stupid name … well, it had been Regina herself. She'd encouraged her son's fixation with G.I. Joe because it was mundane, it was the sort of interest that a child of the enchanted forest would never develop.

"It's her birthday."

"Whose?"

"Your mom's."

"She's not my mom."

That phrase again, no less painful for all its repetitions. Regina _could_ not deal with this argument too, not on a day where she could not distinguish between actual voices, magical whispers, and Daniel's echoing screams. As he exploded, ripped limb from limb by the explosions Regina had triggered … no. Regina crossed from her desk to the door.

"Today, she is." Emma's voice turned broken and rough.

Regina stopped with her hand on the doorknob.

"When you found me, Henry. It was my birthday."

"I know. I told you. It was your twenty eighth birthday. It's part of the book."

Regina's own child was becoming dangerous. Archie could no longer be relied upon to tell Henry that the story was a lie; Regina would have to do it herself.

"I was looking at one cupcake. Alone. When you came in. I was wishing not to spend my birthday alone." Emma's voice broke for real this time.

Regina opened the door briskly, as if she was exiting for an ordinary errand. She feigned surprise to see Emma and Henry standing in the center of her office, Henry's school bag thrown carelessly on a chair. "Explain yourself, Deputy Swan," Regina barked at Emma.

Emma's eyes glinted. "Henry told me that it was your birthday, Mayor,"

"Henry should be in school. Where he is going right now."

"After last night, he didn't feel well."

Regina knew what her mother would have expected of her after a mine tunnel accident. Even if the incident hadn't been Regina's own fault, and especially if it had been, her mother would have expected her to endure every consequence without complaint.

Regina was not her mother.

"Do you need to go home, Henry?" Regina asked as gently as she could. Despite the fact that he was a ten year old boy, who didn't want her for a mother and called her an evil queen, she still wanted to hold him rather than smack him. He was alive.

Henry didn't meet Regina's eyes.

"Henry has a birthday present for you," said Emma.

He still didn't meet Regina's eyes, but he held out a small box. "Emma bought it," he mumbled.

Emma elbowed Henry lightly. "You weren't supposed to tell her that part."

Regina didn't trust herself to speak, so she lifted the lid from the box. A unicorn pin was nestled inside. The phrase, _for now, forget,_ spoke in her head, and she remembered. One moment with Daniel. A lifetime without him.

Emma, surprisingly perceptive even though she was Regina's enemy – perhaps making her a more dangerous enemy – turned again to Henry. She handed him a bill and said, "Let's pretend you don't know how to use a credit card. Can you go to the bakery and get a birthday cake for your mom?"

Henry's eyes flitted to Regina and back to Emma and back to Regina before he finally said, "Sure."

Emma shut the door after Henry, then quite deliberately locked it. She wasn't supposed to know how to do that. Regina decided she didn't want to know how Emma knew exactly how to operate her office lock. "Truce?" Emma said, meeting Regina's eyes.

"What are you talking about?"

"Truce. Just like last night. Remember? We had to stop arguing and find him before the air ran out."

"And now?"

"Now I want to stop arguing so your son can see that birthdays are good and not bad."

Regina met Emma's eyes. The woman had taken so much away from her in only a short time. She was smart, she was perceptive, she had Henry's trust and stories. She could break the curse, and Regina would lose. And yet the nightmares were still fresh and real as ghosts, the unicorn pin called back one perfect moment from another age, Regina had her true happy ending taken away a long time before, and Emma had somehow maneuvered herself so that she gripped both of Regina's hands, staring at her with open compassion.

Like with Daniel in the stables – perhaps for the first time since those days with Daniel in the stables – Regina started to cry freely. And they stood like that for a very long time. The fire and the explosions and the guilt and the loss somehow tempered by this one gesture of friendship.

Regaining control at last, Regina turned her back to Emma and ducked from the public part of her office to the private for tissues. She emerged with her makeup redone, wearing the stern look that was her public face as mayor. "Never happened," she told Emma.

"Naturally," Emma said, and the woman actually smirked.

Keeping all the power. It all looked so familiar. But the agony in Regina's chest had eased, and she felt as if she could live in a world without happy endings again. "The truce remains, though," Regina said. "Why don't you take him back out. Go to a bookstore or something."

"Naturally," Emma said again. She unlocked the door. For several minutes she simply stood there, then she opened it to greet Henry, who carried a frosted cake with a single candle.

Henry put it down on Regina's desk and started to sing "Happy birthday."

Regina captured the moment. Maybe it was only a moment, but it was real, and it would exist forever.


End file.
